@TobiasKienzler Thanks Tobias. Is there a feature request for notifications upon our question's answers or our answer's question being edited? I know that can change how we accept, upvote, downvote and answer on SO, so I think its a valid request, right? I've been downvoted because I answered a question that was edited and my answer was incorrect for the current state of the question.
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RileyEMar 14 '13 at 15:14

@TobiasKienzler Oh. That should also probably extend to notifying the people who favorited if an answer is selected. Or maybe an answer subscription option for a certain question? But thank you so much!
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RileyEMar 14 '13 at 15:27

The inbox could also include suggested edits on my posts by people who don't yet have enough reputation, so I could approve/reject them myself, without needed intervention of other edit-approvers. (They would still be visible on the global queue, of course.)

it's trivial for users who care about edits to check their responses tab for edits every week or so.. why would we want to "cry wolf" and nag them every single time this happens at the time it happens? That would also devalue global inbox substantially with naggy messages that aren't even replies specifically directed at them.
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Jeff Atwood♦Jan 23 '12 at 11:05

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at 20k reputation you would be looking at a whooping 2 notifications per month, I would not call that "crying wolf" the best time to teach people is close to the time the action happened.
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wafflesJan 23 '12 at 11:09

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codinghorror.com/blog/2004/10/just-say-no.html "Innovation is not about saying yes to everything. It's about saying NO to all but the most crucial features." Sure, add this notification to global inbox.. what's the harm.. then another.. then another.. what's the harm? Without discipline and rigor, pretty soon the inbox becomes just another eminently ignorable source of noise. Inbox is supposed to be only for the absolutely most important things, things directly specifically at you that need your response.
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Jeff Atwood♦Jan 23 '12 at 11:12

however if you want to add another "subtab" to inbox for low-pri stuff like edits I possibly could support that. But it absolutely cannot increment the big red IMPORTANT counter.
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Jeff Atwood♦Jan 23 '12 at 11:16

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@JeffAtwood we have a general serious issue around notifications I feel needs to be addressed, there are just too many incoming buckets. We have notifications in the inbox. We have big notifications in the header of the page, that only go away when you click x or the link. We have notification numbers on the user profile in 4 tabs. Too many buckets to check and deal with. Too many buckets.
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wafflesJan 23 '12 at 11:18

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@JeffAtwood actually I am fine with that ... I feel having "low pri" info in the inbox would allow us to get rid of a few buckets ... want to find stuff out .. go to inbox.
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wafflesJan 23 '12 at 11:19

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well, the wrong solution is to start spamming our users with tons of meaningless alerts in the one really great notification system we have. It is great precisely because it is so disciplined and does not waste my time with irrelevant stuff. And for the record, I still don't think edit notifications are very important at all, there are at least 5 or 6 other things I would put in front of them like bounty notifies, accepted answer changes, etc.
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Jeff Atwood♦Jan 23 '12 at 11:19

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@JeffAtwood except that we do waste your time, in 2/3 different ways depending on which bucket the notification reaches. I am the last person to advocate spamming users with crap.
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wafflesJan 23 '12 at 11:21

@waffles Looks like the link to the responses tab is only visible for Jon and moderators, not for me.
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Paŭlo EbermannJan 23 '12 at 12:35

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@PaŭloEbermann replace the /22656/jon-skeet with your own information. They used it for example because everyone knows Skeet. Additionally, very few people but Skeet have the skill, knowledge or audacity to edit most of his posts.
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jcolebrandJan 23 '12 at 19:12

@waffles I'm all about having a single bucket of low-importance that aggregates all my site-updates so that I don't have to click the X or visit and look at a sub-tab.
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jcolebrandJan 23 '12 at 19:15

I think it will lead to a lot of edit wars. You, sir, had the audacity to edit my post? In reality you should not care if others edit your posts, since you trust the global community as a caretaker of your content -- right? I'm thinking of the wikipedia folks who monitor every tiny change to a page and have a hair trigger revert finger.. it's happened to me many times there.

I can tell you that virtually none of the edits I see are "inbox worthy" on metas, so right off the bat I wouldn't want meta edit notifications, which to me is a symptom of not needing them altogether.

Every new notification we add to the global inbox adds to the "crying wolf" factor of the global inbox and devalues other future messages.

I really only want things directed TO me in the global inbox, not random things that happened to my posts that I might or (most likely) might not care about.

There is also a trivial workaround: you can periodically check your profile to see what edits have occurred on your posts, and take action as you see fit.

Actually, I really care about edits on my posts, especially since they are such rare (19 edits in my whole SO history, with 1075 answers and 9 questions. It looks like edits on meta are much more often ... or simply edits on questions are much more often than on answers). And your workaround only works for individual sites, not network wide (or I missed the "responses" tab on my SE profile).
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Paŭlo EbermannJan 23 '12 at 12:45

Jeff you're actively overblowing a point of your own by conflating goals. You don't want notifications on any child meta, because only mods or you can do that. If a mod edited your post, it should REALLY be a good edit. Don't lump Meta Stack Exchange in with [child-meta], because they aren't the same, and we know it. I feel the need to edit your post to remove that, just because I can. However, it detracts from your point, so it's a toss-up.
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jcolebrandJan 23 '12 at 19:14

@jcole what? Any user with 2k rep on the parent site can edit other people's posts on any child meta any time they want. No idea what you're talking about.
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Jeff Atwood♦Jan 23 '12 at 19:40

oO seriously? I've been told time and again no editing. FFS. Also, I need to push one of my accounts non-trilogy up over 2k...
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jcolebrandJan 23 '12 at 19:47

@jcole I think you are thinking of suggested edits, which indeed isn't enabled on metas. But 2k users can edit anywhere, as per usual
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Jeff Atwood♦Jan 30 '12 at 18:19

Does the topbar edit notification only appear when you've been inactive for a certain period? I just stumbled upon a completely idiotic edit to one of my posts that I don't remember being informed about. I see now that it's in my responses tab, but thanks to the global inbox, I never think of looking there anymore.
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mmyersFeb 3 '12 at 18:58